


Gone

by ArraFrost



Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers - All Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Domestic Avengers, Funeral, M/M, Superfamily, Superhusbands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-24
Updated: 2012-07-24
Packaged: 2017-11-10 14:58:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/467575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArraFrost/pseuds/ArraFrost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The family is one member short and the two holding on try their best to cope with the loss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gone

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written as a prompt on tumblr.

The black suits, the dark veil, the solemn faces. The atmosphere trickled with unspoken words that could never be heard and buckets of salt that refused to be spilled. The closest of the people were chosen. The people that knew him the most. The people that would always mourn the man and not the suit.

Thor, in his Asgardian best, was silent with respect. Natasha stood strong, resilient but chose not to mask the vulnerability and loss in her eyes. Clint hung his head, eyes shut, refusing to see more than he needed. Banner shook, keeping everything controlled but allowing himself in this moment to feel. Happy lingered next to Pepper, holding her hand as the tears streamed down her cheeks. Nick Fury almost looked mournful. Rhodey in his military uniform couldn't stop the small drop that trickled from his eye. His son, Peter, staring at the ground as he tried to deny the reality around him, wishing this was an illusion, a bad dream that he would wake up from so he could never sleep again in fear of reliving it. And his husband, Steve, free of the Captain America uniform in a simple black suit because Captain America needed to take a back seat today. If the world was coming to an end, not a muscle in Steve's body would move and not a soul could tear his eyes from the casket in which Tony's body currently lay.

The casket lowered into the ground and Steve's hand found it's way to his son's shoulder. The teenager jolted, aware that the thought floating across his mind had told him to jump into the hole with his father. He shuddered as he steadied himself, swallowing around the build up of tears in his in throat.

“How do we do this?”

Steve's attention snapped as he took in his surroundings. He was standing in the kitchen, propped up by his elbows on the counter, staring down at the cup of tea in his hands that he remembered pouring moments ago... it was cold.

Slowly he turned, taking in the condition of his son leaning against the door frame. Grey sweatpants he'd been wearing for the past week, a familiar Black Sabbath shirt, unwashed hair sticking up without care and dark rings around his red eyes.

Steve breathed in painfully, the air piercing his lungs as he took it in, tears pushing at his eyes with every movement of his eyelids. Rolling the mug in his hands, he shook his head, his shoulders slumped. Nothing he could say would heal the wounds, nothing he could do would change anything.

“I don't know, Peter.” His voice cracked, his eyes connecting with the down turned sadness in his son's.

Peter choked in his next breath, wrapping his arms around himself and the shirt as he slumped down to the floor, stretching out his legs until feet touched the other side of the door frame.

“ _Shall I heat more water?”_ JARVIS spoke softly, the compassion of the A.I. clear. JARVIS had barely spoken unless prompted in the past week and neither Peter or Steve had done much prompting. Never had Stark Towers been so silent.

Steve simply nodded and he could hear the workings of the water heating. Tea. That was one way to do this. One small step. Warm the insides that were frozen and numb. Temporary physical relief.

Peter's attention jolted and he stared out the window. His eyes suddenly alert and body ready to move but too exhausted. Steve merely looked at him, face expressionless but eyes asking.

“There's someone... someone's going to get hurt...” Peter nodded his head to the window. Steve understood without further prompting. His spidey-senses, as they'd nicknamed Peter's danger detection, were going off. “I... can't... it's...” He breathed in harshly, a shaky groan and tears came in the exhale. “Every time I look at Spider-Man... all I can see is... I can't do it...”

Steve nodded, tears filling his own eyes. He understood, he knew. Only once in the past week had Steve looked at his Captain America suit. Only once had his hand touched the impenetrable shield. Before he closed the doors without looking back. The people needed Captain America, Spider-Man and Iron Man, but right now... Steve and Peter needed Tony Stark.

“Have you slept?” Peter asked, finally taking his eyes off the window, a decision having already been made inside him with an awareness that in his current condition he could do nothing of significance.

Steve's gaze fixed on the cold mug once more. The day after... he'd stepped into the room and nearly collapsed. The sight of his husband in front of the mirror fixing his tie, pacing the room with a tablet in his hand running over schematics with JARVIS, laying on the bed with a seductive grin... the smell of him. The tea trembled inside the mug as Steve's body shook, tears falling easily and naturally. The door was closed, locked and Steve hadn't walked by the bedroom since. The couch in the living room that smelled of everything in the house, the family, was where Steve slipped into temporary unconsciousness.

“Yeah.” Peter agreed, not having to hear what his father was thinking. He knew, he understood. For hours Peter had stood outside the lab, taking in the silence of the space. The lack of movement. Even Dummy was still. He sat there, watching through the glass, contemplating everything that had happened as he watched his father busy his hands in a new project, threaten Dummy not to spray him with the fire extinguisher as he tested a new prototype, spinning in his chair as he manipulated the projections with his hands. Absentmindedly Peter kicked the door frame as he bit his lip, trying to force the tears back in.

“Pop... Why did...I just... I want my dad...” He whimpered, hands shaking, nose running.

Steve dropped the cup. Peter was nestled in his arms within a second, gripping his shoulders tightly and crying helplessly into his chest. Steve held him close, as though everything in the room would fall apart around them and he was the only thing that could protect Peter from harm.

Peter clung to his father through the tremors, through the need and the want to punch anything out of frustration, the desire to crawl into a ball in his father's closest and just breathe. Father and son rocked together on the floor, closeness and shared heartbreak their only comfort, and the unspoken realization that Tony couldn't fix this. He couldn't walk through the door with his schemes and his inventions and make this go away. It was only them. That was all they had.


End file.
